On January 6, 2013 15 members of the Chatham Youth Wrestling Club traveled to Newton, New Jersey to compete in the Kittatiny Holiday Wrestling Tournament at Kittatiny High School. This is probably one of the toughest wrestling tournaments in the State of New Jersey. It was certainly the toughest wrestling the young Cougar grapplers have faced so far this year.
Drew Mitzak, Chatham's 96 pounder, was the lone Cougar to win this event collecting two pins on his quest for the gold. Drew,wrestling in the 90 pound weight class, beat his first opponent from the Tri-State Wrestling Club 6 to 1 and then pinned his next two opponents, one of whom wrestles for the Butler Wrestling Club. According to Coaches Nonnenmacher and Ciccarelli, " Drew is coming to every practice, he works real hard and he goes to club. His hard work and dedication is paying off for him". There is no doubt that a healthy Aedan Joel would have won this tournament as well.
Aedan, Chatham's 70 pounder, started the day off with flu like symptoms due to a stomach bug or a bad bagel he ate on the trip to the tournament. As a result, Aedan had to forfeit his first match. Aedan, however, never gave up and bounced back to pin his next three opponents, all in the first period. Aedan pinned his second opponent from the Underground Wrestling Club in 10 seconds, then pinned his next opponent from Tri-State Wrestling Club in 29 seconds and then pinned another wrestler from Underground in just 18 seconds to take home a silver medal. Newcomer, Darius Khani also took second place at this event.
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Darius, Chatham's 55 pounder, pinned his first opponent from Stillwater in just 32 seconds. Darius bounced back from a second round defeat to beat his next opponent 16-1. Collin Boler took fourth place on the strength of two pins and Michael Rohe also finished the day in fourth place. Chatham also got strong performances from Teddy Joel (50), Owen McClintock (60) with one pin, Brian Boler (55), John Rohe (65), Connor Cortese (70), Anthony Scerbo (75) with one pin, PJ Joel (85), Cyrus Khani (90), Dean Ciccarelli (90) and Tim Rohe (130) with one pin.
